A Matter of Intelligence
by ucsbdad
Summary: A small task force from the Hammer's Slammers universe finds itself in the Farscape universe. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

A Matter of Intelligence  
By  
(UCSBdad) 

Disclaimer: Once again, profitlessly stolen from Henson, et al, David Drake and anyone else I need to borrow from. Rating: K+ Time: Some twenty five cycles after PKW and a bit after my Warriors for the Working Day.

"The damned planet is inhabited."

That, of course, was the gunnery officer, Commander Larteguy, a master of stating the obvious.

"Of course." shot back our sensor officer, Commander Marchand, "We picked up a huge communications spike just as we entered this damned system. And we picked up two small ships dropping out of orbit from their moons. Plus, the drones have picked up signs of life on the planet itself."

"And since then we've gotten absolutely nothing." Put in Captain Darlan. Our captain leaned over the table and stared down at the junior officers clustered at its end. "What can Intelligence tell us, de Gautier?"

I stared back. Darlan looked like he should have been a Sergeant of Grenadiers in the Garde Imperiale instead of a ship's captain. He had a thick and muscular body topped with a craggy face that was split by a truly gargantuan mustache. Below the mustache was a strong chin and above it a large nose, once badly broken and never properly repaired. Unlike everyone else on the ship, who had regulation haircuts of no more than a quarter inch in length, his hair hung over his forehead and over his collar.

Well, I thought, I could tell them that going to an entirely new and different Universe had pretty much put paid to everything I had learned in our old Universe. That would hardly be politic for the second most junior division head on the ship.

I cleared my throat. "Sir, we know there was a colony of religious cultists here some twenty- plus years ago but no one's heard anything from them since. Allegedly they're plant based life and somewhat pacifist. They did hire a tribe of people called Luxans to protect them, though."

"That is intelligence we picked up in a damned bar." The most junior division officer on the ship added acidly. That was Lieutenant Julia Boisferaus, in command of our detachment of Naval Infantry. To look at her, you would have thought she was younger than I, but having been re-habed three times, she was the oldest person on the ship. The third time she had been re-habed, she had done the whole thing. Not just the cleaning out of arteries, lungs, liver and such that you usually get, but her skin was returned to the suppleness of youth, her hair made a thick and lustrous auburn, plus she had some work done on her face to make her a classically aristocratic beauty. I always wondered how she had paid for it.

Julia had commanded a brigade group in her day, and having to settle for commanding a handful of "porpoises" on a lone warship was definitely not to her liking.

I gave her a pleasant smile that I knew she'd hate and went on. "The planet, we now find, is surrounded by twenty four moons. Each is some thirty-two miles in diameter and are in such precise orbits that anyone approaching would be covered by guns on at least four moons."

"Guns that…" Julia began.

"Guns that we haven't actually seen, I know. But," I tapped on my computer control, " we have six of what can only be gun pits on each moon." The computer showed a close- up of one of the moons with a deep circular tunnel surrounded by a protective berm.

I shrugged. "We could send a recon drone in closer, of course…."

"And give some gun crew a perfect target." snorted Captain Darlan. "We have too few drones. Too few of everything."

Commander du Glatigny, the executive officer, interrupted. "Have reviews of the data shown any reason why all of those moons have been terraformed?"

I slowly shook my head. There was absolutely no reason for anyone building an orbital fort to add artificial gravity, an atmosphere and plant life.

"Commander, the moons were obviously moved here from the outer solar system and cut down to the same size. I would suggest they were built for some reason we do not yet know and only later used as forts."

Boisferaus snorted derisively.

Captain Darlan glared briefly at her. "Well, can anyone think why no one on the planet has bothered to respond to a warship that's been broadcasting continuously for three days now."

I checked quickly to make sure that none of my seniors was about to answer that one and then spoke. "This is the edge of what they call the Uncharted Territories, sir. Although there is a peace of sorts between the Scarrens and Peacekeepers, there have always been pirates and raiders loose in the Uncharted Territories. Everyone we've met here agrees with that. It's why we came to this planet, after all."

I gave the command team a quick look to make sure that I wasn't putting anyone to sleep and went on. "While there is a peace between the two major powers, there isn't perfect peace yet. Renegade Peacekeepers, Scarrens and Charrids have headed off to raid and set up their own little kingdoms. Lesser powers, such as the Sheyangs, Tavleks, Halosians, and even the Luxans that allegedly protect this world, all have taken the opportunity to raise hell while they can."

"Then why won't they answer the comms of a friendly warship." Du Glatigny growled. "We've made it clear we mean them no harm. Quite the opposite actually."

Once more I shrugged. "Sir, I suppose they assume any warship to be hostile. They'll ignore us if they can and kill us if they get the chance. And I doubt that our statement of good intentions means anything here about. I doubt if anyone shows up and openly announces their intention to pillage and loot."

I was saved from a nasty crack from Boisferaus when the intercom broke in.

"Captain, we have something coming out of null space."

Captain Darlan rose without ceremony and headed for the bridge. By the time I got to the cramped cubbyhole that served as the intel station on the bridge, we had identified the newcomer.

"It looks like a message drone, sir." called the duty sensor officer after checking quickly with a senior petty officer. "There it is, sir. It's squawking _Chacal's_ IFF code."

The tension drained out of the bridge. _Chacal_ was our one and only escort. The captain had detached her to check out a planet called Karraid, where it was alleged, all manner of things were for sale with no questions asked.

"All right," said Captain Darlan, "start recovery. We'll see what _Chacal_ has found for us."

Four hours later we were back in the ship's conference room with a much better idea of how to proceed.

Six hours after that, Captain Darlan stood in front of the comms unit in full dress blue uniform, rather than the utilitarian grey coveralls usually worn by everyone. One of the comms personnel fussed over him. "You might want to turn slightly, Sir, so they can see the wide red stripe on your trousers."

The captain snorted. "Nobody on that planet knows what that means, or cares. Nor do they know or care about my medals or my command sash. Now let's start broadcasting."

The comms tech backed away and after a few seconds, I could hear the slight hum that meant that the people on the planet could now see and hear Captain Darlan, if they cared to.

"Greetings to Pa'u Kilota Civa, First Guide of the Seek for the planet Forests of Bazil. I am Captain Francois Darlan, commanding the French Imperial Ship _Austerlitz_ , 32, and other Imperial forces. I am broadcasting on the frequency that I know you monitor for the Ilanic cruiser _Okrana_. I assure you that I wish you no harm, but I do wish to talk to you. Perhaps I should attract your attention in the same way as the Ilanics did? We don't use the plasma weapons you refer to as frag cannons, but I could fire a thermo-nuclear tipped missile and explode the warhead over your planet. Would that attract your attention?"

Suddenly words appeared on my computer screen "Carrier wave from planet detected. Comms being established."

In a second the image of a woman appeared on the bridge.

"Please tell us what you wish and then go away." She said briskly.

"I do not wish to go away." The captain replied lightly.

As she stared at us, I looked her over. She appeared to be a lovely human woman except that she was blue with what might be called golden freckles on her face. Her hair was a silver-white and she appeared to have the appropriate secondary sex characteristics for a female. Considering that her race was alleged to be plant based, I wondered if that was mere coincidence.

A very loud growling filled the bridge and the view widened to show a second being standing beside her. This one appeared to be large, male and in a bad mood. From the facial tattoos and odd tentacles on his head, I decided he was one of the Luxans we'd heard about.

Pa'u Civa smiled and lightly stroked the back of the Luxan's hand. In a minute or so he quieted down.

"I assume that your translator microbes didn't translate that, Captain. My friend General Karajorj was promising to inflict certain Luxan tortures on specific parts of your bodies. However, since you Peacekeepers have different body types than Luxans, that doesn't really translate." She paused and smiled at us. Not a nice smile. "I can give you an approximation of what he said if you'd like."

Captain Darlan returned the smile. "It wouldn't mean anything since we're humans and not Sebaceans."

"Lying fekkik." snarled the Luxan general.

"Really, Captain," Pa'u Civa said quietly, "do you think we don't know what Sebaceans look like? Or that heavily armed Sebaceans are therefore Peacekeepers? Please refrain from lying to us."

Captain Darlan let the insult lie there for a minute or two. Finally, he spoke. "Perhaps we should dispense with the diplomatic niceties, Guide? I'll start by telling you what we know of this planet. Then I'll tell you about us."

Diplomatic niceties? I'd have to remember that one.

Taking silence for consent, Captain Darlan went on. "You settled this planet some six hundred years, that is, cycles ago. Delvians are renowned for their knowledge of natural pharmaceuticals. You moved twenty-four moonlets into orbit and turned each one into a garden for certain kinds of pharmaceuticals. Each moonlet has a slightly different atmosphere, different gravity, different temperature, different humidity, and so on. Each moon was perfect for raising certain classes of plants. The drugs you manufactured from them were quite valuable and sought after."

"Alas, things in the Uncharted Territories became more dangerous. So dangerous that you hired a group of Luxans to protect you."

"Luxans are not hired, Peacekeeper." The Luxan general roared. "We fight for honor. Not mere money."

Darlan waited for the Luxan to cool down. Then he went on.

"Your…friends…the Luxans, then set up frag cannon installations on your moons, which served very well as forts."

"This served to keep the general run of predators away, but not the Ilanic cruiser _Okrana_ under Captain Cheka. The seemingly endless Ilanic-Scorvian war was putting quite a strain on the Ilanics. They apparently authorized Captain Cheka to collect what they term as "taxes" in return for protecting you from the Scorvians, even though there appears to be no record of any Scorvian threats anywhere in the Uncharted Territories, and certainly there have been no threats to you."

Captain Darlan stopped for a few seconds while General Karajorj snarled and roared in his own language. Then he continued.

"The _Okrana_ showed up one day and shot the few interstellar ships you had out of the sky. Then they threatened to shoot up your planet. You could have fought them, and I would imagine your Luxan friends would have preferred that."

General Karajorj snarled, but it was Civa that replied, in cool, measured tones. "We suffer from being at the bottom of a planetary gravity well. Gravity slows down our plasma bursts and speeds up those of the Okrana."

"And," added Captain Darlan," all the Okrana had to do was hit your planet to inflict damage on you. You had to hit a vastly smaller, maneuvering ship."

"So you chose to pay the taxes." Darlan went on. "It wasn't a great deal of money, after all. What you hadn't counted on was that the _Okrana_ would hang around your solar system capturing the merchantmen that served your planet as prizes of war and announcing that as Forests of Bazil was now under the protection of the Ilanics, anyone who traded here would have to buy a very expensive license and pay very steep taxes as well. That pretty much made the _Okrana_ the sole source of pharmaceuticals from Forest of Bazil. They're very expensive on Karraid, where the _Okrana_ sells them."

And, I should add, those on Karraid and elsewhere that were in on this little scam weren't about to enlighten a human intelligence officer when asked. I made a mental note to talk to a few people again in the future.

"Very good, Captain." Civa said coolly. "Is that all? I sincerely hope it is."

Darlan shook his head. "Remember, I promised to tell you about humans. What do you know the rest of the galaxy over the last twenty five cycles or so?"

"We have learned all we need to know about Peacekeepers." General Karajorj bellowed. "And we do not…"

Civa gently put her hand on his arm and he stopped.

"We have had virtually no contact with the outside, Captain. There was a smuggler about twelve cycles ago that agreed to take a cargo of ours to Garden of Galil. We never heard from him after he left our solar system. And he provided no news."

Darlan nodded and began telling the tale of the famous John and Aeryn. How a lone human from a backward world had made himself a power in this Universe and brought peace, of a sorts, to the galaxy.

"Now I know you're lying." General Karajorj scoffed. "A Peacekeeper Commando becoming emotionally attached? Do you think we're idiots? Do you expect us to believe such a story?"

Darlan smiled. "You might wish to consider that a man with a large and powerful warship under his command is telling you that story, general."

Karajorj looked like he was going to explode, but once again, Pa'u Civa calmed him down.

Darlan continued with his story, telling of how John and Aeryn, and some friends, had been chased by a Peacekeeper task force past what was thought to be a long dead planet. However, the "planet" was an enormous, incredibly ancient machine that existed in two different universes, long referred to locally as the Anomaly. Once close enough, that machine had shot the Crichtons and the Peacekeepers into our universe.

Civa nodded. "Our sciences tell us that there are indeed other universes besides our own. Some say they are few and others that they are infinite. Are you an expert in this science, Captain?"

Darlan shook his head. "I fear not. I'm not sure there are any such experts."

Darlan continued his tale. Once out of the universe we were now in, John and Aeryn found themselves in our old universe. A universe where none of the races common here, the Sebaceans, Delvians, Luxans, and such existed. A universe where humans were the dominant race. And a universe where humans battled other humans endlessly.

"The Crichtons ended up on a world called K'hiff which was garrisoned by a large human mercenary force. The two Peacekeeper ships followed them to our universe, in spite of having had their engines destroyed. The Peacekeepers landed on K'hiff and fought the humans, unsuccessfully. Only a handful of Peacekeepers survived."

"You expect us to believe that your kind destroyed a Peacekeeper Command Carrier and its escort." General Karajorj snorted. "Bah! Your lies grow tiresome."

"I expect you to believe, eventually, general, that I am here with a large and powerful warship and that you should begin taking me very seriously."

"Please continue, Captain." Pa'u Civa said quickly.

The rest of the tale was quickly told. John and Aeryn went home to their own universe. The news of a path to another universe was lost in the constant warfare that was starting to consume human society. For decades humans fought each other: War to the knife and knife to the hilt. Finally the exhausted human powers had managed to make peace.

"I fear that our Empire had to be counted as one of the losers in this war." Darlan said sadly.

Well, we hadn't fared as badly as those planets that had been nuked right down to the bedrock, but we had done badly enough. The Council of Regency that had ruled in young Emperor Charles' name had done an abysmal job of fighting the war. They had made peace and made war based solely on our own short range interests. What had le Comte de Barras said? "The Empire has no friends and no enemies, only interests."

Regrettably, the Council had a gift for disaster. They had joined the Pact of Djilas at just the moment the Pact's overstretched forces were crushed by the Spinward Alliance. Once having made a disastrous peace with the Alliance, they had joined the Seventh Coalition. They withdrew from the Coalition just before the Coalition secured a very favorable peace, depriving our Empire of the spoils of that war.

And so the Council had bumbled and bungled its way through the wars for year after year and decade after decade, even after the Emperor reached maturity. When the great powers of humanity had finally banded together to enforce a peace, the Empire had been shorn of its colonies and interests outside of our home solar system.

"The citizens of the Empire were not happy with those who had led them so disastrously into war." Captain Darlan pronounced.

There was an understatement! Those who were "not happy" had resorted to assassinations, terror bombings, riots, strikes and general, mindless violence against the Council, now renamed the Council of State, in honor of the Emperor's reaching his majority. Although I doubt that our fat-headed Emperor appreciated the honor.

Virtually every faction in the Empire had at one point or another been opposed to the Council. And, now that the Council was clinging desperately to power, it seemed equally incapable of rationally selecting allies and standing by them. The Council would make an alliance with, say, the United Empire Loyalists, and then double cross them in favor of the Rally for Union and Progress. No sooner would that piece of idiocy be completed that the Council would drop the Rally and try to mend fences with the Loyalists. And so on and so on and so on.

Naturally, and quite sensibly, all factions were incapable of trusting the Council.

I had been assigned to doing direct action work on a rather distant front. It had taken quite a bit of time to extract me and return me to Nouvelle Paris. I had not realized how badly things were back home and had offered my services to the Council as soon as I had arrived home. Obviously, I should have waited to see which way the wind was blowing.

Darlan went on presenting our sugar-coated history to Pa'u Civa. "The victors, who now call themselves the Great Powers of Humanity, insisted on peace. They insisted to the point that they would exterminate any planet or faction that threatened their hard won peace."

"There were, as you might understand, many who knew no life other than war. I am one such person. Another was a mercenary commander, Marshal Edmund Burke O'Donnell. O'Donnell was quite powerful, and as a mercenary, had no home planet to return to, as did many of his troops. O'Donnell proposed that he lead his troops through the Anomaly and into this universe, and never return. Many others, mercenaries or not, wished to go to as well and find a new life in your universe."

"Marshal O'Donnell himself has since made an arrangement with Dominar Rygel XVI and is now the governor of the Hynerian planets that lie along the junction of the Scarren Empire and the Uncharted Territories. Marshal O'Donnell also rules a few planets that have pledged fealty to him directly as the head of Human Forces Command. The most important is his base world, a previously uninhabited planet he calls Arsenal."

"Dominar Rygel?" interrupted Pa'u Civa. "It was our understanding that he has been dead for many cycles and that Dominar Bishan rules the Hynerian Empire."

Darlan smiled. "Rygel is very much alive. Bishan is widely believed to be dead, and there is a head said to be his by Dominar Rygel's throne. There are, however, at least two rebels at large in the Empire who claim to be Bishan, and another one who has apparently fled the Empire."

"Are you under the authority of this Marshal O'Donnell?" That was General Karajorj.

Darlan shrugged and then smiled. "No, but we do have friendly relations with him."

Karajorj laughed nastily. "Doubtlessly the master of a single ship will be friendly to one who is master over many planets, and the master of many planets will be friendly to one who can do him no harm. At least until he needs to crush you underfoot, Captain."

Well, yes. I had to admit that was true. There were a number of reasons for our actual non-relationship with Marshal O'Donnell, including an intelligence bungle that thankfully I had no part in.

To begin with, O'Donnell had little use for the Empire or its troops, regarding them as untrustworthy. Well, our government had certainly been untrustworthy, that I would admit.

Secondly, Captain Darlan had spent most of his career on assignments to the most distant parts of the Empire's sphere of influence. He had become accustomed to making his own decisions without reference to distant senior officers whose orders would probably be completely outdated by the time they arrived, assuming they ever did.

Lastly, we had rather badly underestimated Marshal O'Donnell. There were other major political and military figures leaving our old universe for this new one. O'Donnell just happened to be the one that had found a powerful ally. No one else had managed that.

And, O'Donnell had been the one to originally suggest that the vast excess of soldiery in our universe should be sent to this one. The powers-that-were cleaned out their arsenals to make sure that those who went had the best weapons possible to allow them to stay here. And, they had, more often than not, simply sent those weapons on to Marshal O'Donnell at Arsenal.

When we had reached Arsenal, I had thankfully been detached to have a look around on Chacal. No one could blame me for what had happened. Arsenal had looked like a vast construction site, overlaid with a trash heap. Everywhere in orbit were shot-up ships, waiting for undermanned orbital mining ships to find and mine the raw materials that would be sent to the idle orbital factories and onto the shipyards to turn near scrap warships into lethal machines once again.

On the planet itself, shattered divisions were fleshed out with God-knows what odds and sods recently rescued from prison planets. Although the troops were well enough armed, nothing else had been done to turn the planet Arsenal into an actual arsenal. There were no barracks, no hospitals, no transportation system, no communications system, no factories, no training facilities and no farms. There was nothing that would allow O'Donnell to properly support his command.

Everywhere there seemed to be vast confusion, and no progress. We misread the situation entirely.

"So," summarized Pa'u Civa, "you come here as the commander of a single warship, admitting that you have no relationship with the powerful figures you claim lie beyond our solar system."

Was there a slight emphasis on the word "claim"?

"Thank you, Captain Darlan, for the very interesting story. Now please leave our solar system."

"Ah, Guide, I cannot." Darlan replied. "I'm not done yet."

Darlan stopped, as if to gather his thoughts, although we all knew that this part of his speech had been carefully planned.

"The Ilanics come and collect taxes and give nothing in return. I am prepared to sell your pharmaceuticals at Garden of Galil for you. In return, I expect seventy percent of the profits."

"Only seventy percent?" Pa'u Civa said with a smile. "Why not take it all?"

"Because I am not a thief!" Darlan shot back. "But I do take all the risk. I have to get my ship and our cargo to Garden of Galil and return here. All you need do is sit here and do nothing as you have done for the past twenty cycles."

Pa'u Civa shook her head. "Captain Cheka will fight you if you try that, and his ship is three times your size. And when he finds out we allowed this he will attack us. Either alone or with more Ilanic ships."

"No." Darlan said quietly. "He will do none of these things."

Darlan allowed Civa and Karajorj to stare at him for long seconds and then continued.

"His ship's mass is two and three-quarters that of my ship. But my ship is half again as fast as his ship ever was and our weapons have twice the range of his and are a great deal more lethal."

"His ship is in poor physical condition. His crew is in worse condition. Whether he actually came to the Uncharted Territories twenty cycles ago as part of the Ilanic Fleet I cannot say. But today he's nothing but a pirate. He hasn't been back in Ilanic space in over a dozen cycles. Instead, he has a regular circuit. When he leaves here, he goes to a mining colony called Gonndarr and extorts refined metals from them. And he's careful not to extort enough to make it worthwhile for the colony to build defenses or hire another ship to destroy the _Okrana_. "

"After Gonndarr, he's off to a place called Orpa-Glazzo. It's nothing but a second rate agricultural planet, but it provides food that has all of the nutrients that Ilanics need. And it's defenseless."

"From there he goes to a colony that orbits a super-Jovian, a gas giant. They extract rare gases from the planet and the Okrana extracts the gases from them."

"Then it's onto…..Well, you get the idea, don't you?"

"And most importantly," our Captain said, raising his voice slightly, "he gets no logistical support from the Ilanic Navy. After twenty cycles out here, you can almost hear his engines wheeze as they try to drag his ship across the gulf between the stars. His weapons are sure to be a greater threat to anyone firing them than anyone being fired at. Nearly half his original crew is dead or has deserted him. The replacements are the scum of the universe."

"And the Ilanic Navy won't be coming to reinforce him if he gets in trouble. He's been declared a pirate. I believe the exact term used is alfarazz."

Karajorj growled. "The Ilanics are racial cousins to the Luxans. They do not permit outsiders to bandy that term about. You should be careful how you use it, Peacekeeper."

Before Darlan could remind General Karajorj that we were not Peacekeepers, Pa'u Civa interrupted.

"An interesting tale, Captain. I admit that your presence here provides some support to your story. However, I will need to consult with my advisers. This will take a long time, Captain, so do not interrupt us. However, I will contact you again."

The transmission from the planet abruptly ended.

And so we began to wait. The Captain used the time to drill us. We snuck up on inoffensive gas clouds. We made mock attacks on cruiser sized asteroids. We practiced escorting non-existent convoys. Then we practiced attacking the same convoys.

I made use of our maneuvers to place reconnaissance drones where they'd do the most good. I set them to use only passive sensors until ordered to use active sensors, and I was sure no one in this universe would find them.

At the end of our first month in the Forests of Bazil solar system, we left to rendezvous with our other ships.

The Great Powers had badly wanted their excess soldiers and spacemen to leave their universe and go elsewhere. They had insisted that only the best equipment be lavished on those who left. Oh, that left them in no danger, you can be sure. Even the weakest of the Great Powers was immeasurably stronger than Marshal O'Donnell's command. Even if every man and ship that had crossed to this universe had sworn fealty to O'Donnell, the Great Powers could have crushed him easily. Well, perhaps not easily, but crushed he would have been.

And so Captain Darlan had received the brand new cruiser _Austerlitz_. She was faster, longer ranged, had better sensors, and better armor and weapons than any previous cruiser the Empire had built. We managed to convince the captain and crew of the destroyer _Chacal_ , 12, to join us. Alas, most Imperial officers intended to submit to O'Donnell and live the familiar life that they had lived in the Empire: A life of order and chains of command and regulations for every occasion. A few bold souls chose to strike out on their own and found their own empires. More fools they.

We had been fortunate to learn of the _Wessex Lady_. The _Lady_ had been a prize of war, rebuilt as an auxiliary. She had been intended to be a support ship for _Austerlitz_ class cruisers on distant stations. Her two million ton hull was crammed full of enough weapon reloads, spare parts and repair bays to keep a cruiser squadron operating for at least a year.

The Empire had no more distant stations to man, of course. The _Lady_ was to be sold to a firm of merchants who would return her to the peaceful ways of commerce. I had made a point of becoming very friendly with the skeleton crew the Imperial Navy had left aboard. We quietly installed our own full crew, added in family members and a few hundred assorted naval personnel who wished to leave the Empire and quietly left our shrunken Empire. By the time anyone realized the _Wessex Lady_ was missing, we were in another universe.

We kept the _Lady_ in relatively nearby interstellar space where no local pirate would find her. We kept _Chacal_ away from the Delvian solar system in case we needed a surprise.

The _Lady_ was a curse of sorts, as well as a blessing. She could keep our lone cruiser running for a half a dozen years or so. But, she kept us from thinking at once of what we would do when that half dozen years was gone. A half a dozen years was not much in the life time of a man.

We could see what had happened to the _Okrana_. Other human ships had suffered from the folly of forgetting about logistics. We had run across an ex-Imperial cruiser that had set up a little empire for themselves. They had fired off half of their missiles taking their empire, though. What would they do if someone tried to take their empire away from them? What would they do the time after that?

If we weren't careful, in ten years we'd be unable to outrun or outfight any raider out here.

After three months, we got our decision from Pa'u Civa.

"Incoming from null space, Captain." announced the sensor duty officer. "It's big."

Darlan smiled tightly. "I can guess who it is. Captain Cheka has come calling."

It took another ten seconds for the sensors to confirm the Captain's guess. In another ten seconds, we got a comm from Cheka.

"You fekkiks have ten microns to leave this solar system! Do you hear me? No one carries Forest of Bazil's pharmaceuticals but me! Or those who pay me! Do you understand, you frelling thieves? Leave or be destroyed!"

Cheka stood there glaring at us from the comm screen. He was a bulky humanoid, who looked to be about as broad as he was tall. He had tentacles on his head as the Luxans do, but only two of them. Ribbons were tied to his tentacles, which we were told were symbols of his naval rank and his accomplishments. His bulky form was otherwise encased in a plain blue coverall.

Darlan nodded to our comm tech to start broadcasting. "I have no intention of leaving, Captain. And none of being destroyed. In fact, your ship is neither fast enough to bring me to battle, nor strong enough to defeat me should I engage you. I suggest you leave."

Our translator microbes made little of Cheka's reply, except that he was furious. His ship began lumbering toward us.

Darlan shook his head ever so slightly. "All right then. As we planned, head for the green gas giant. We'll let him chase us for a while."

"Aye, sir." was the reply. "Course set for Paddy's Pub."

And so we ran from _Okrana_ , easily outdistancing her.

But wait, you say. Didn't we just say that _Okrana_ was a space going junk pile? One nearly incapable of running or fighting?

Yes, we did say that to Pa'u Civa. But a little exaggeration will be excused when dealing with a potential customer, or so I say. To be sure, _Okrana_ was a slower ship than ours and our missiles had a greater reach than their frag cannons. And, _Okrana_ probably hadn't had a proper overhaul in years. But it was still a warship and therefore dangerous.

We had war gamed the encounter with _Okrana_ using the intel we had. Our computer said we had a fifty per cent chance of destroying _Okrana_ with no damage to our ship. There was less than a one per cent chance that _Okrana_ would destroy us. The other forty-nine plus per cent was that we would destroy _Okrana_ with some, unknown, damage to ourselves.

Our plans to make a home for ourselves in this new universe required, at a minimum, one functional cruiser. If we were reduced to a damaged cruiser that we couldn't repair, along with _Chacal_ and _Wessex Lady_ , we might just as well go cap in hand to Marshall O'Donnell and take whatever terms he felt like offering us.

And so we ran.

We made it to the gas giant the crew had named Paddy's Pub well before Cheka and his ship. Once we shot over the planet's north pole, we put _Austerlirz's_ nose down and dove past a small moon on the far side of the planet. With any luck, Okrana would follow us so closely that she'd slam right into the moon, ending our problems with her.

No such luck, by the time _Okrana_ waddled up to the planet, the little moon was well above the horizon. _Okrana_ missed it easily.

And so we lead Captain Cheka a merry chase all over the solar system. Once we hid behind a small airless planet while _Okrana_ headed off in hot pursuit of where they thought we were. When we shot out from behind the little planet and headed off in the other direction, the rage in Cheka's comms became more pronounced.

"I think his sensors are even less efficient than we thought." Commander Marchand said quietly as we headed back towards Forests of Bazil.

We waited until _Okrana_ had pulled to within about two hundred thousand kilometers of us before we contacted the ship again.

"Really, Captain Cheka." Captain Darlan said as politely as he could manage. "We have no desire to destroy your ship. Even though we do doubt you are a part of the Ilanic Navy any more, they might take offense at our destroying you."

Cheka's face filled our view screen. He was perspiring, as if he had personally been trying to coax a little more speed out of his ship.

"Welnitzs!" He snarled. "I haven't seen you do anything but run. Can you fight?"

Darlan glanced over at Commander Larteguy, our gunnery officer. After a half a minute, Larteguy nodded.

Darlan turned back to the image of Cheka. "Well, perhaps this will show you we can shoot."

We fired a single missile when _Okrana_ was about a hundred and twenty thousand kilometers from us. That would normally be out of range for our missiles, but _Okrana_ was headed straight for us, and had lousy sensors. The missile just might get to _Okrana_ at its maximum range.

We watched our sensor readouts as the missile headed straight for the Ilanic ship. Suddenly, _Okrana_ turned on her axis to head straight away from us. Energy weapons blossomed from the ship in a vain attempt to shoot down our missile. The missile exploded.

We waited expectantly to see what had happened. It took only a few seconds for the sensor operators to disappoint us.

"No joy, sir." One of the operators announced. "The missile ran out of fuel and self destructed about fifty-five kilometers from the target."

Being fifty five kilometers from a nuclear explosion in a modern spaceship would cause no problems at all. _Okrana_ would have had a bad scare, but no more.

After a few seconds _Okrana_ did fire a full broadside of her frag cannons at us. The plasma bolts fizzled out less than halfway to us.

Okrana headed away from us.

Captain Cheka's face reappeared on our view screen. "I will leave here and return with enough Ilanic ships to destroy you!" he bellowed. "I'll turn that plant infested planet into a radioactive ruin. See if I won't."

"You won't." Darlan said as we cut off communications.

And, if _Okrana_ did return, even with other ships, we still had more tricks up our sleeve than the single shot with that missile would show.

No sooner had _Okrana_ headed off than we got a comm from the planet. It was Pa'u Civa.


	2. Chapter 2

A Matter of Intelligence, Chapter Two  
By  
(UCSBdad) 

Disclaimer: Once again, profitlessly stolen from Henson, et al, David Drake and anyone else I need to borrow from. Rating: K+ Time: Some twenty five cycles after PKW and a bit after my Warriors for the Working Day. 

"Hello, Captain Darlan. I must admit that your handling of Captain Cheka was not what I expected."

Darlan shrugged. "My understanding of the Seek is limited, but I believe that unnecessary violence is abhorred."

"Actually, all violence is abhorred, Captain."

It took a few seconds for both parties to realize that a philosophical discussion was not appropriate. Pa'u Civa spoke first.

"It was fortunate that Captain Cheka arrived when he did as the dispute among my advisors has now been resolved. We will be happy to accept your terms. Do you think you can carry 600 cubic motras of pharmaceuticals?"

"I believe we can carry 900 cubic motras, Pa'u Civa." Captain Darlan replied graciously.

Pa'u Civa was lying through her teeth, of course. Captain Cheka had a very strict schedule that he kept and wasn't due back to Forest of Bazil for another three months. I concluded that Pa'u Civa had a means of communicating with Cheka and perhaps with the rest of the universe.

No matter. We loaded the pharmaceuticals and after a brief stop to give orders to _Chacal_ and _Wessex Lady_ in interstellar space, we began the three week trip to Garden of Galil.

Once at Garden of Galil I found myself sitting with Captain Darlan and Commander du Glatigny in a comfortable chair across from a skinny, bald old Delvian who was from whatever passed as the Foreign Ministry around here. Supporting him were a pair of officious looking clerks and a beefy, bearded human in a brown uniform.

Garden of Galil had been getting raided by mostly renegade Charrids for about a decade before humans had arrived. To put an end to this, the Delvians had hired a human military leader called Brother Saul to defend them. Brother Saul's troops were from some off- shoot of Christianity I had never heard of, but they were good fighters.

"Am I to understand you don't intend to pay me?" Captain Darlan said coldly.

"No, no, Captain. That is not our intent at all." He managed to say it in such a way that made it sound like we should be asking him not to pay us.

The Delvian managed an apologetic smile and went on. "We are well aware of that Ilanic's depredations at Forest of Bazil. We simply want to satisfy ourselves that you have a bona fide commercial relationship with Pa'u Civa before we pay you. We ask that you return to Forest of Bazil with an envoy. Once the envoy establishes that you are what you say you are, you may load another cargo and return here to be paid for both cargoes."

No one had claimed that the universes were full of people who would go out of their way to help us. Darlan nodded. "I had hoped to pick up some supplies here. I need fresh water. What we have has been recycled too often. And some fresh food. I'd also like to use…"

The Delvian cut him off. "We will be happy to give you food and water. But, we are unable to offer you any further assistance." He glanced meaningfully towards the human as if daring us to complain.

We agreed with ill grace and as we straggled out of the building, I managed to detach myself from the group and went looking for someone.

As I expected, I found him sitting in an office with his door wide open. Unlike most of Brother Saul's troops, he was clean shaven. His blond hair had receded a bit since I had last seen him and I noticed he had a bit of grey in it. The laugh lines around his eyes and mouth were a bit more pronounced. He was a man you could sit down with and feel instantly comfortable with. That was a very useful ability for an intelligence officer.

"Brother Sean?" I asked politely.

He looked up with a slight look of puzzlement. Well, no reason he should recall me.

"Lieutenant Frederic de Gautier, sir. We met during the Antharalla campaign. I was with the Imperial Special Operations Group on Cantabria. You were an adviser with Clan Ranald over on Skye."

He nodded. "A bloody business there on Cantabria, as I recall."

My turn to nod. "The Cantabrians have been perfecting the vendetta for more than two millennia. I honestly doubt that a little thing like an interstellar war added to their blood-thirstyness."

Brother Sean turned up the smile and pointed to a chair. "Sit, lad. What are you here for?"

"I'm from the _Austerlitz_ , sir." I began. "We ran into an Ilanic cruiser…."

Brother Sean held up a hand and waved me to silence. "We know all about _Okrana_ , Lieutenant. And we know that she has never threatened us or our employers. We also know that our warships are very good at defending a planet, being exceptionally well armed and armored, but are too slow to go chasing raiders."

It had been worth a try, I suppose. I tried another tack. "We're armed with SSM 28, Mod 4 missiles, although we can use any other Mod."

Before I got to the end of my sentence, Brother Sean was shaking his head. "We have a Treaty of Friendship with Marshal O'Donnell. We get weapons and other stores as well as logistical and administrative support. In return, we do not, repeat, do not assist any other forces."

I had one thing left to try. I reached into my tunic and brought out a data pack and slid it across Brother Sean's desk. "We ran into the _Okrana_. These are copies of our sensor readings for her and an analysis of her that I did. There's also some information we picked up on a planet called Karraid."

All of it was accurate. None of it was complete.

Brother Sean took the data pack and stared at it for a few seconds. "Would you mind if I just look at it for a minute or two, right now?"

Without waiting for a reply, Brother Sean popped it into his computer and started reviewing the information.

It took about ten minutes, but Brother Sean turned off his computer and smiled at me. "Would you like a bit of tea, lad?"

Without bothering with my reply, he called into a back office. "Sister Sarah. Be getting us a pot of tea, if you will." Then he turned back to me. "What will you be having with your tea, lad? Sugar? Honey? Lemon? Rum? Aye, rum's just the thing."

Five hours later I staggered back aboard _Austerlitz_. Luckily, Captain Darlan was huddling with the senior division officers over what we'd try to buy once we got paid. I went to my office to do some work and sober up. It was not until another couple of hours later that I was called to the captain's office.

"Have you been drinking, de Gautier?" He asked.

"In the line of duty, sir." I replied steadily. "Brother Sean may be of a religious bent, but he's still Irish. And he's not one of the civilized ones like Marshal O'Donnell."

Captain Darlan said no more on the subject and waved me to a seat.

"I have written a full report, sir." I said, sliding a data pack to him.

"Just summarize it, if you please."

I gave a slight shrug. "It's as we thought. Brother Saul won't go after Captain Cheka, nor will they help us. But Marshal O'Donnell will."

"Ah," said Darlan. "That's the good news. I always assume there's bad news to go with it."

"There is, sir. Marshal O'Donnell is organizing a new trade route that runs from the Royal Planet off in the middle of the Uncharted Territories through Delvian space and the Hynerian Empire all the way to his base on Arsenal. His plan is to establish a series of heavily fortified bases along the way where convoys and their escorts can rest, replenish and rearm. One such base will be here at Garden of Galil, although the details haven't all been worked out. Each of these base worlds will host a task force whose job will be to go out and hunt down any raiders or marauders in the area."

"Better and better." Darlan said. "What's the catch?"

"Well, sir, Captain Cheka and Okrana have been identified to O'Donnell by Brother Saul's intel types as a marauder to be hunted down. A Rear Admiral Toranaga has been selected by O'Donnell to head up the task force to be based here. I checked our intel files. We don't have much on Toranaga except that he's a relatively senior rear admiral and he's from Yamato."

Captain Darlan stared into space over my head. "If he's from Yamato, he'll be concerned with his status and position. He'll demand some sort of capital ship as his flagship. He'll not get a modern, fast battleship, mind you, but something like a light battleship. One of the _Pytor Veliki_ class, or maybe an R class battlecruiser. I hear O'Donnell has several of them. Either could blow _Okrana_ to atoms with half a broadside."

"So, I repeat, what's the catch, Lieutenant?" Darlan asked briskly

"Every one of Toranaga's ships needs time in the ship yards to be ready for service, sir. Most of them need a lot of time. Except for his scouts, which haven't even been built yet. Toranaga won't be in position here for another year."

Darlan frowned. "And in a year, anything may happen. O'Donnell may have a dozen jobs for Admiral Toranaga a year from now, none of which involve us, Cheka or Garden of Galil."

Darlan shook his head slightly. "Do you have any good news for me at all, Lieutenant?"

I smiled. "Brother Sean advises me that there's a blockade runner based here, _Whistling Dixie_ , Captain O'Hara. _Whistling Dixie_ is almost as fast as _Austerlitz_ , has excellent defensive armament and carries offensive armament of six stern chasers. Best of all, she has about twenty times the cargo capacity that we do."

That got a smile from Darlan. "And Captain O'Hara? Will he be willing to work with us?"

"According to Brother Sean, sir, she will be more than happy to work with us. Her prior missions out here haven't been too successful."

"Captain O'Hara is a she?" Darlan asked.

"According to Brother Sean, very much a she, sir."

Darlan stopped and thought. "Do you have any good estimate of how long it'll take Captain O'Hara to cut her own deal with Pa'u Civa and cut us out entirely?"

I shrugged. "Not really, sir. If she's had trouble out here already, and she knows there's an Ilanic raider that will be hunting her, she's likely to be cautious. And, the arrival of humans in large numbers in this universe was like kicking over an ant hill. All sorts of heavily armed people are suddenly running into each other. I'm sure she'll want the protection a warship can provide for a while anyway."

Darlan stared over my head for so long I was starting to wonder if he'd forgotten all about me. Suddenly he spoke.

"Well, we'll just have to see what kind of arrangement we can make with Captain O'Hara. This is what we're working towards anyway. That one day merchantmen will trade peacefully with Forest of Bazil and we'll be supported by the taxes on that trade. If we can establish ourselves as the official navy of Forest of Bazil, or at least as the de facto force keeping the peace in this area, we'll get a treaty of friendship with Marshal O'Donnell. Who knows, maybe even a treaty of alliance. Either treaty will give us the logistical support we need. Then we'll have a secure home in this new universe without some admiralty drowning us in red tape, endless reports and mindless bureaucracy."

Darlan had cheered up, it seemed. He really did hate the bureaucracy that went along with any large organization. A pity in many ways.

And we did come to an agreement with Captain O'Hara, but she had her ship in the yards at Garden of Galil and would not be ready for a month or so. We made note of the fact that heavily armed merchantmen were apparently not covered by the prohibition against helping armed forces.

"So, did you get any word of warships that would join our little task force?" Darlan went on. "I could use another couple of destroyers, you know. Even some missile frigates. A nice small cruiser, something like one of the _Penelopes_ , would be nice. Any of those around?

I shook my head. "No sir. Also no _Imperatrice_ class battleships, with a full task force, no lost and lonely Garde Imperiale divisions, no Imperial Escort Group, no….."

Darlan cut me off. "Don't mock your elders, boy." But he said it with a smile. He was happy finding the _Whistling Dixie_.

"We do have word on some of the people who have come over here, sir. Most of them have signed up with Marshall O'Donnell. There are a couple who'll probably turn pirate soon, but they're too small to bother us. All the details are in my report."

"Any one we do have to worry about?" Darlan asked.

"Not immediately, sir." I said. "The Laird of Kintyre came through the Anomaly about two months before we did with six to eight cruisers and some escorts. He avoided all of Marshall O'Donnell's patrols and has made an alliance with a Luxan warlord in the Glimmer Rim. He should be busy there for a long while."

"I hope so." Darlan said forcefully. "Keep an eye out for that deranged bastard. If he starts heading towards us, I want to know about it. Anyone else?"

"Yes, sir, Prince Paul of Parhoon is here. He's probably the strongest human leader aside from Marshall O'Donnell. His forces are reckoned to be two-thirds to three-quarters the size of the Marshall's and generally speaking less powerful, unit for unit. Best of all, he's allied himself with some ex-Imperial Charrids and carved out a new kingdom way on the other side of the Scarren Empire. As soon as he'd set himself up, he invited his new Charrid allies to a grand party to celebrate. Then he had them all killed. One way or another, we'll not be bothered by him."

Some years later I'd have cause to remember that particularly stupid observation.

I went on. "The K'hiff are starting to trade with Arsenal."

Darlan held of his hand to stop me. "The K'hiff? The aliens whose home world is in the same solar system as the Anomaly? How in the name of the good God did they get permission to cross back and forth between the two universes? The so-called Great Powers have declared that we're off limits. We're nothing but a bunch of dangerous killers to be separated from the rest of humanity at all costs."

"Yes, sir. I'm sure we are." I replied. "But the Anomaly is in the K'hiff home solar system. Under clearly recognized interstellar law, they do have a right to exploit the Anomaly."

"Oh, and I'm sure the Great Powers fall all over themselves every day to protect the rights of poor alien nonentities." Darlan shot back.

I kept my face carefully blank. "Also Skoda Works has arranged to set up a joint venture building warships at Arsenal. It seems the bottom has dropped out of the warship construction business with the advent of peace. They can reassign a lot of people and factories to civilian work, but they had about ten thousand engineers and skilled workmen that they'd have to fire. People who'd doubtlessly end up working for Skoda's competitors. Some of their orbital shipyards won't be easy to convert to civilian use either."

A smile slowly spread over Captain Darlan's face. It was good to work for an intelligent commander. He was figuring this out more quickly than I had in Brother Sean's office.

Finally, he spoke. "The Great Powers send envoys over here, of course. They want to make sure we're not plotting any evil towards them. And what do they find? A bunch of down at the heels mercenaries squabbling over some wretched planets? No indeed! They find that Marshal O'Donnell has been appointed a Provincial Governor in the Hynerian Empire, an empire of over six hundred billion people. And other human's like Brother Saul, or ourselves for that matter, are making deals with wealthy alien civilizations."

"Skoda hears about this and smells money. They want in. Alas, the Great Powers have decreed there is to be no coming and going between the two universes, other than very limited official business. Then they find that the K'hiff have come to ask for their rights to exploit the Anomaly and were brushed off. Suddenly our furry K'hiff friends have an ally. An ally that as good as owns two whole solar systems and parts of many, many other systems. The K'hiff are quickly granted their legal rights. And since one group now can legally cross into the next universe and return, Skoda demands the same right. Very neat. What's O'Donnell going to get out of this?"

I quickly checked my brief notes. "Sir, the first thing is two _Cornwall_ class armored cruisers. They've been sitting in orbit around one of Skoda's shipyards with no one to buy them. They'll complete their fitting out at Arsenal and join Marshall O'Donnell's forces. After that, Marshall O'Donnell will be in a position to build anything he wants except capital warships. He already can build anything up to a destroyer."

Slowly Darlan shook his head. "We fighters didn't fit into the new universe the Great Powers wanted to build. They wanted peace and tranquility. We were the dogs of war. We were supposed to get ourselves permanently exiled from the human dominated universe. They wanted us hermitically sealed off in this universe so we couldn't cause any trouble for our old universe. Now it looks like the old universe is going to follow us here. How soon do you think it'll be before the United Commonwealth of Bexar is cozying up to the Peacekeepers or the Sword Worlds are trying to make friends with the Luxans?"

We both sat there for a few minutes until the captain spoke. "The more things change the more they remain the same."

"Yes sir." I replied. What else could I say?

Captain Darlan shot me a smile. "Well, de Gautier, we need to get ready for our trip back to Forest of Bazil. The envoy from Garden of Galil is aboard."

"He is, sir?" I asked.

"She is." Darlan replied.

"A woman, sir?"

"Very much so."

Pa'u Zufir Zhaan was indeed very much a woman, and a young one by Delvian standards, being a bit past one hundred years old. She was blue, of course, with a long mane of wild silver-white hair and deep blue eyes. Her teeth showed very white when she smiled and she smiled a lot. The most plant-like thing about her were her breasts, which looked like two large melons standing proudly on her chest. She wore a short, translucent dress that barely covered those breasts and showed a great deal of her long, muscular legs.

Rumor had it that she wore nothing under that dress, but no one was ever able to confirm that. Some of the junior engineering officers were able to prove that the dress could lengthen and shorten itself as well as adhere strongly to her body when necessary.

We also found that her body would adhere strongly to others. Pa'u Zhaan had a habit of leaning over when she talked to you if you were below her line of sight or standing very close to you if your eyes were above her. She also would wrap her arms around us at any opportunity.

I once was all alone in an elevator with her. She immediately wrapped both of her arms around my right arm and pulled herself close. By the good God! I could feel her nipple pressing into my arm.

"Your human language is so very complex, Lieutenant de Gautier." She breathed into my ear while rubbing against me. "You are the intelligence officer? Does this mean you are more intelligent than the others on this ship? If this is so, why are you not in charge?"

I tried to disentangle myself from her with no success. Somehow I found myself facing her. Both of her arms were around my neck and both of her breasts were grinding into my chest.

"I'm in charge of gathering intelligence, that is, information, about our enemies and potential enemies, Pa'u Zhaan." I managed to blurt out.

"Oh! Do you gather information on me?" She asked while writhing against me.

The doors of the elevator opened and I finally broke free.

"Of course not, Pa'u Zhaan." I stated firmly, lying through my teeth.

Normally, such an interlude would have led to a delightful afternoon in a secluded nook amongst the maintenance stores that I had stumbled upon. However, I was an intelligence officer and therefore professionally paranoid. I was deeply suspicious of Pa'u Zhaan's excessive affection for all and sundry. So, I went to the ship's medical officer to be checked for an infestation of alien spores or whatever, and then had my clothing thoroughly examined and decontaminated.

Gathering intelligence about Pa'u Zhaan had been made more difficult by Captain Darlan. Not that I disagreed with him of course. After his first meeting with Pa'u Zhaan, during which she tried to sit on his lap, he had immediately ordered that no one on this ship was to have any sort of physical relations of any sort with her. He also forbade me from planting any surveillance devices in her quarters.

I was able to seed the passageway outside her quarters with remote sensors, though. It was amazing how many junior officers managed to pass through that passageway.

By my calculations, our gunnery officer, Commander Larteguy, passed through the passageway far more often than he had in the past. However, he was trying to reorganize the missile magazines to give us a bit more space for cargo, so it may have been an innocent change in his routine.

Interestingly, Lieutenant Julia Boisferaus passed through the passageway repeatedly and even slowed down when passing by the door to Pa'u Zhaan's stateroom. Whether Julia wanted to offer herself as a lover, a mercenary, or in some other capacity, I never discovered.

After an uneventful three weeks, we found ourselves entering the Forest of Bazil solar system.

"I'm picking up a neutrino reading, sir." The duty sensor officer, Ensign Bernadotte, announced.

"Could it be from the planet?" Captain Darlan asked.

Bernadotte huddled with his sensor crew and then shook his head. "I've gotten a feed from the sensor drones we left behind. There's a ship hiding behind Forest of Bazil, sir."

Captain Darlan called up a hologram of the solar system. "All right. Let's make a long, slow turn to port to get behind him."

The Executive Officer, Commander du Glatigny, raised an eyebrow. "He can hide behind the planet forever, sir. Simple geometry tells us that."

Darlan smiled. "He won't. Someone on the planet is telling him what we're doing. As soon as he sees we're trying to get behind him and pin him against the planet, he'll come out."

And so it was. In less than ten minutes a strange ship shot up over Forest of Bazil to confront us.

"It's not _Okrana_." said Bernadotte. "She's too small. This one is slightly bigger than we are, I'd say, sir."

"Well, what and who is it, de Gautier?" Darlan growled at me.

I was busy running through my limited intelligence on local ships. Since I had an entirely new universe to learn, I was in trouble.

"I think…." I began, with little hope of finishing with anything useful.

" _A Luxan assault piercer._ " said a soft voice in my brain. At the same time I noticed a blue hand had touched my ear and swiftly drawn away. Now Pau' Zhaan was a good three steps from me and resolutely ignoring me.

"Um, it could be a Luxan assault piercer, sir." I said hopefully. "I'm afraid that's about all I know about it. There's very little in my database."

"I do believe Lieutenant de Gautier is correct." Pa'u Zhaan announced. "All I know about them is that they are quite fast." She smiled dazzlingly at the captain. "Since Lieutenant de Gautier is in charge of brains on this ship, I'm surprised he didn't know that."

There were a couple of repressed laughs on the bridge. Before I could explain my function to Pa'u Zhaan once more, Julia spoke up.

"He most certainly is not in charge of brains, here or anywhere else. Why, I believe…"

Darlan cut her off in mid-sentence. "That's enough, Lieutenant Boisferaus. He identified the ship after all. None of us did."

Julia sat glaring at everyone for a few seconds until we got two incoming comms.

"Comm from the planet and one from the ship, sir." The duty comms petty officer announced.

"I'll take the one from the ship. And put it broadcast so the whole bridge can hear and see it." Darlan announced. "Georges," Darlan said, turning to du Glatigny, "please talk to the planet. On a private channel, please."

The captain of the strange ship was indeed a Luxan, blessed with all the bluster of his race. He took a very long time to tell us that we were interlopers in his solar system and that we could either surrender or die, and that he hoped we'd chose to die.

Darlan politely advised him that we would neither surrender nor die and offered our opponent the chance to leave. The Luxan's reply was the termination of communications.

"Sir?" Du Glatigny broke the silence. "That was Pa'u Civa. Basically, she said she has no idea where the Luxan is from or why he's here and regrets not immediately advising us of his presence. She says there was some sort of a communications error on the part of her people. They're looking into it."

Darlan smiled thinly. "I'm sure that they are, Georges. Now, I think, we'll have to communicate to all concerned."


	3. Chapter 3

A Matter of Intelligence, Chapter Three  
By  
(UCSBdad) 

Disclaimer: Once again, profitlessly stolen from Henson, et al, David Drake and anyone else I need to borrow from. Rating: K+ Time: Some twenty five cycles after PKW and a bit after my Warriors for the Working Day. 

"The Luxan is starting to head our way, sir." The sensor officer announced.

Darlan leaned over to catch a glimpse of the sensor readouts. "How much power did we need to outrun _Okrana_?"

"Sixty-two point five percent, sir." Commander de Glatigny said promptly.

"Good!" Darlan pronounced quickly. "Increase power to sixty three percent and head for Marble Fudge."

Marble Fudge was the name we had given to the largest planet in this solar system, a super-Jovian gas giant that just barely missed having enough mass to become a star in its own right. Its name came from the brown and white swirls on its surface.

We had hardly made our course correction to head for Marble Fudge when the sensor officer announced that the assault piercer was gaining on us.

"Increase to seventy percent, please." Darlan said quietly.

And still the Luxan ship gained on us.

"Increase to seventy five percent, if you please." Darlan said.

We kept increasing our power and the Luxan kept gaining on us. We were not going to avoid a fight this time.

"Sir," announced a comm from Engineering. "We are at one hundred percent of military power. Do you intend to go faster?"

By disabling certain safety protocols, we could increase our speed slightly without undue danger to us. By disabling certain other protocols, we could increase our speed by some fifteen percent. That would cause damage to the engines, which might explode without notice.

Captain Darlan and Commander du Glatigny exchanged glances. Then Darlan spoke.

"No, Engineering. No further speed will be required. In fact, as soon as we pass over Marble Fudge's north pole, I'll be ordering our speed to be cut to ninety three percent. That should he in about six minutes."

Captain Darlan turned to our gunnery officer. "Charles, when the Luxan closes to within one hundred and ten thousand kilometers of us, I want a full spread of missiles fired at him. Considering he'll be headed straight at us, and at our missiles at near his full speed, that should just be within missile range. Plus, he's totally unfamiliar with our weaponry and tactics.

We had fired one missile at _Okrana_. However, we had a total of thirty-two missile tubes that could be fired simultaneously. Of the thirty-two missiles, eight would be penetration aids, missiles without warheads but that would help the other twenty four missiles hit their target. Four of these missiles were spoofers. They would cause the Luxan's sensors to show missiles where there were none. The other four were jammers. These would jam our enemy's sensors and prevent them from finding the real missiles.

The single missile we had shot at _Okrana_ had self-destructed when it ran out of fuel and had been only a simple nuclear explosion. The missiles we were about to fire were detonation lasers. At the moment of the nuclear explosion, a gravitic lens would be formed which would focus a small part of the nuclear blast as a laser aimed at the Luxan. Even a small amount of the energy of a nuclear explosion was enough to cut through the armor of a warship and bite deep into her vitals.

As soon as the Luxan ship saw our missiles on his sensors, he turned hard to port. What he hadn't seen was _Chacal_ hidden among the rocks and other spatial debris surrounding Marble Fudge. As soon as the Luxan made his move, _Chacal_ lit him up with its sensors and fired its missiles at him.

Now the Luxan found himself turning away from our thirty-two missiles, but headed into _Chacal's_ dozen missiles. All he could do was to try to steer between the two groups of missiles and shoot down as many as he could.

We watched as the missiles closed on him and silently counted as his frag cannons shot down missiles. Then, in an instant, his luck ran out. Fourteen of our missiles exploded followed shortly by five of _Chacal's_. It took a few seconds for our sensors to clear and show the wrecked Luxan ship hanging in space.

Amazingly, we got a comm from the ship. The Luxan captain, bleeding dark colored blood from his head, glared at us. "You are not honorable. You did not advise me that you have two ships. You are not honorable."

Darlan shrugged. "We have more than two ships. You never inquired as to how many ships we had, you just began threatening us."

"You are dishonorable!" The Luxan bellowed.

"Whatever." Darlan said dismissively. "If your crew can abandon your ship, we will be happy to pick them up."

If anything, the Luxan captain's glare intensified. "I will never be taken prisoner!"

Darlan did his best to smile in a reassuring manner. "Captain, we are not savages. We will not enslave you or dishonor you. We will simply set you free on Forest of Bazil. There is no need to hazard the lives of your crew any further. Please, captain."

The glare faded from the Luxan's face. But whatever he might have said or done was lost in a sudden explosion that reduced the ship to a cloud of radioactive atoms.

"The Luxan's fusion bottle has breached, sir." Announced one of the sensor crew.

There was nothing to do but retrace our path back to Forest of Bazil with _Chacal_ in company.

Once we had taken up a distant orbit beyond the reach of the frag cannons on the moons, Pa'u Civa reiterated her regret that a communications failure had prevented her from advising us of the arrival of the "unknown" Luxan warship. Captain Darlan nodded and said that modern communications systems were often too complex. Then he introduced Pa'u Zhaan as the envoy from Garden of Galil. Pa'u Civa announced that she was thrilled to see another member of the Seek, and further, that she had always believed that Captain Darlan would return as he had promised.

I decided I had enough of the diplomatic chatter and went to work on my workstation trying to find anything we had on Delvians.

It was almost six hours later when I got a chance to talk to Captain Darlan again.

"You did well identifying the Luxan warship, de Gautier." The captain said without preamble.

"No I didn't, sir." I confessed. "Pa'u Zhaan touched my head and I heard her voice in my head telling me what the ship was. I'm afraid we may have had a telepath with us for the whole trip."

Darlan scowled. "By the good God! Do you mean she may know everything about us? Everything?"

We talked about this potential problem for nearly an hour, but could find no solution other than to try to bluff our way through and always consider that the Delvians might be able to read our minds until we could prove otherwise.

Be that as it may, in less than a week we were headed back to Garden of Galil with a cargo of pharmaceuticals. There, we found _Whistling Dixie_ ready for her first run to Forest of Bazil. _Austerlitz_ escorted _Whistling Dixie_ back to Forest of Bazil.

I, regrettably, was assigned another mission. _Chacal_ took me back to Karraid on business.

Karraid is a dreadful place. It is a large moon of a gas giant. It is quite cold and the atmosphere is largely methane. The installations are dug into the surface of Karraid and the standard of the original workmanship was exceedingly shoddy. As the sole reason that one would come to Karraid was to make money and quickly leave, maintenance of the facilities were wretched. The place was cold and stank. Perhaps that explained why so many of the inhabitants drank raslak in excess.

I quickly finished my business and decided to have a drink. There were some people that I wanted to talk to on Karraid.

After checking a half a dozen wretched bars, I found who I was looking for. Alas, there seemed to be no decent wine anywhere in this universe, but the bartender, a large, friendly wolf-like fellow provided me with a beer that was quite adequate.

I carefully sat down near a group of ships' officers wearing the gaudy red, black and gold uniforms of the Empire of Cho-Sen.

When I sat down, the conversation among the officers ceased. Finally, the political officer, for only a political would have talked to a stranger, spoke to me.

"You served the French Emperor, sir?" She said politely.

"That I did. Past tense, of course." I replied.

She nodded solemnly. "We still serve our Emperor." She waited a second and then moved in. "Perhaps you would like a drink, Lieutenant?"

She had one of the junior officers pull up another table and I joined them.

"The raslak they drink here is an acquired taste, but once you try it, I think you'll enjoy it." She said, resting the tips of her long, slender fingers on my thigh.

I shrugged and accepted the alien drink. Five raslaks later, my voice was starting to slur just a bit.

"You are off the destroyer, Frederic?" Lin sighed as she snuggled against me. "The _Chacal_?" Somehow we had been separated from the rest of her party and were now in a darkened booth in the back. A booth with a privacy screen and wide, well-padded seats, I had noticed.

"I came here on _Chacal_ , dear Lin." I said seriously. "But I'm on the staff of Rear Admiral Darlan. _Chacal_ is normally part of the screen for our task force."

"You are on the staff of an admiral? And he commands a task force. How exciting." Her hand moved up and down my thigh.

I nodded. "It's not like the old days. Our flagship is only a heavy cruiser, _Jena_ , 48, and she's damaged. We have two smaller cruisers and half dozen destroyers, plus some scouts."

I stopped speaking and clumsily picked up a fresh glass of raslak which I managed to spill down the front of her uniform. After helping her to dry off, I accepted another raslak from her and downed it in one gulp.

"But, once we get _Jena_ repaired, we're going after a very wealthy target." I stopped again and carefully looked around. "And the bastard comes right here. It'll be a cinch to take him down when he's not expecting it. The next time you see me, dear Lin, I'll be rich."

Somehow Lin had unbuckled the belt of my trousers. "Rich?" She moaned in my ear. "How will you become rich?"

"There's a tax collector for a nation called the Ilanics that operates out of here. The Ilanics have been at war with some people called the Scorvians for decades. Admittedly, he's a little bit more than an extortionist, but he's a very successful one. And there's more."

"More? She sighed.

"More!" I said, forcing her head down.

I continued to talk. "The Scorvians have a long standing friendship with some people called the Luxans. You've heard of the Luxans?"

Lin mumbled something. I took it for an affirmative.

"The Luxans have provided volunteers and ships for the Ilanics. But the Scorvians haven't been beaten. So, several of the more pro-Ilanic Luxan worlds have put together a huge sum and intend to go to Marshal O'Donnell to try to buy some modern human weapons. The money has already been transferred to the Ilanic ship, my love. The Ilanic will pick up the Luxan delegation the next time he's here."

We were too involved to talk any further for the next few minutes.

"What is this Ilanic's name, Frederic?" Lin asked.

"Secret, m' love." I said, slurring my words more. Then I let my head slide forward onto the table.

When I lifted my head off of the table a half an hour later, Lin and her companions were gone. As I was making myself presentable, I noticed a small group of humans in the dark blue uniforms of the Republic of Cymru had entered the bar.

An intelligence officer's work is never done. I went over to join them.

When I finally left the bar, two humans in civilian clothes fell in step with me.

"You've had a great deal to drink, sir." said the male.

They were two of the more presentable of Julia Boisferaus' thugs who had been assigned to _Chacal._

"Not at all." I said cheerfully. "I did ingest a great deal of alcohol, but thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, none of it has entered my bloodstream. Once we are back aboard _Chacal_ , I'll have Surgeon-Lieutenant Lyautey remove the alcohol from my body.

Surgeon-Lieutenant Beatrice Lyautey was a slender woman in her forties. In spite of the baggy hospital scrubs she wore, one could see that she kept herself in excellent condition. I also knew that she had no interest in dashing intelligence officers. So, I sat quietly on an examination table in the sick bay of _Chacal_ and watched her work.

"The contents of your stomach include beer, de Gautier." She said suddenly. "You haven't been with the Goddamns again, have you?"

"The English?" I replied. "Of course not."

"The remainder of this seems to be local raslak, except for….." she stopped talking to further examine something. "Aha! One of the so-called truth serums, nothing but a central nervous system depressant, of course, was also in your stomach. And it is one you have been inoculated against in the course of your training, de Gautier."

"Alas." I said with deep sadness," To think that dear, sweet Lin did not believe I would tell her the truth."

"No woman should believe you, Lieutenant." She shot back.

I hopped off of the examination table and leaned in to kiss Beatrice quickly on the lips. I danced out of the way of the slap she aimed at me.

"Impudent boy! See to it that you do not need to see me again, de Gautier."

I gave her my best smile. "If I do need to see you, I know that your professional scruples will protect me, dear Beatrice."

She was looking for something to throw at me when I left the sick bay.

We returned to Garden of Galil to find both _Austerlitz_ and _Whistling Dixie_ were already there. I was advised that Captain Darlan wanted to see me at once, and I soon found myself reporting to him in his office. He waved me into a chair.

"I have some good news, de Gautier." He began.

"Yes sir?"

"The Delvians aren't telepaths. We got that from Brother Saul's people. However, they do practice something called Unity which is almost as bad. There's a full report at your workstation. Read it fully and never let one of the Delvians do this Unity to you. That's an order."

"Yes sir." I decided to read the report and snoop around a little to see what I could learn about this Unity. It sounded useful, if dangerous.

"Also," Darlan went on. "we're in a little better favor here now that we've started escorting _Whistling Dixie_ to Forest of Bazil. The local Delvians no longer treat us like pirates and I've met with Marshal O'Donnell's Liaison Officer here, Commodore Graham. He was friendly, but non-committal about a treaty of friendship. However, he did allow Brother Saul to sell us some non-lethal supplies and even let the local shipyard work on our aft grav sensor. It works better than it did when _Austerlitz_ was first launched."

"You've heard of Sir Robert Knowles, haven't you?" Darlan said, changing the subject.

"Merde!" I let slip. "That bastard isn't around here, is he, sir?"

Darlan laughed. "His head is decorating the Governor's Palace of some place called Jolo. Knowles had set himself up on Jolo until some Extramaduran admiral showed up and flattened Knowles. The admiral then promptly pledged fealty to Marshal O'Donnell. It's obvious O'Donnell set the whole thing up, but no one can prove it."

I nodded. "Who'd want to prove anything against someone as well armed and well connected as the Marshal anyway?"

Darlan favored me with a broad smile. "So, do you have good news for me, de Gautier? Is Cheka dead?"

I shook my head. "If he is, I had nothing to do with it, sir. I was unable to locate a suitable assassin."

"By the good God!" Darlan said, shaking his head. "You couldn't find an assassin on a place like Karraid? Why, when I was your age, there was an assassin at the end of every bar on worlds like Karraid."

I managed to look apologetic. "I could not find a suitable assassin, sir. The kind that can be found at any bar would fail. Cheka is too well guarded for them. The few truly competent professionals on Karraid have other concerns."

"What concerns?" Darlan asked.

I shrugged. "Cheka has been a good customer for the rulers of Karraid. He pays well, he pays on time and he pays in cash. They would be very unhappy were he to die and the income he generates were to dry up. Competent assassins don't make enemies like that."

Darlan growled softly under his breath. "Lieutenant Boisferaus says you were quite drunk on Karraid and were very indiscrete with a political officer from the Cho-Sen Empire."

"What did Surgeon-Lieutenant Lyautey say about my condition?" I shot back.

"That you were quite sober. She advised me that she medicated you so that you did not absorb any alcohol." Darlan smiled at me. "She also said that lying to women is second nature to you.

I told the captain about my discussion with Lin, the political officer.

"Do you think they'll go after Cheka?" Darlan asked. "You didn't give them all the information they'd need, de Gautier."

I avoided laughing. "Sir, you can't give an intelligence officer everything he needs or he'll become suspicious. Even the Cho-Sens should be able to puzzle out who Cheka is. And I hope I've convinced them that they have little time. It would take them years to discover that we don't have a heavy cruiser off in some deserted spot in interstellar space being repaired. Given the number of factions among the Luxans, it would take them longer to discover there is no vast Luxan treasure loaded aboard _Okrana_."

"And," I went on, "they're well set up to try to take _Okrana_. In orbit around Karraid were two heavy cruisers, two lights and five destroyers. There should be another light cruiser and four or five destroyers off someplace, sir."

Darlan gnawed on his mustache. "Cho-Sen ships are hardly first class. Would the Emperor try something like that?"

A good question and one on which much hung. A thermonuclear warhead was a wonderful device for turning a warship and its contents into a slowly expanding radioactive cloud. It was much, much harder to only damage a warship sufficiently to be able to board it and take something off. Especially since your target was doing his best to destroy you and you were only trying to damage him. It was so hard in fact, that few tried it. Fewer succeeded. Of those who had tried, our French Empire had succeeded on two occasions. We were happy to hide the fact that we had succeeded entirely due to dumb luck and put it out that we had developed special weapons and tactics to do the job.

I nodded my head. "The Emperor of Cho-Sen is widely regarded as a megalomaniac. He'd never accept that we could succeed and he could not. He'd throw any officer who suggested such a thing out the airlock. Consequently, none of his officers will tell him the truth."

Darlan stared straight ahead for a minute or so. Then he shrugged. "If nothing happens, all we've lost is a few minutes of your time. The best case scenario is that _Okrana_ is destroyed and a lot of damage is done to the Cho-Sens."

"And, I may have some other good news, sir." I continued.

Darlan nodded for me to continue.

"On Karraid, I met a Captain Gareth ap Owen, late of the Navy of the Republic of Cymru. He commands four missile frigates, sir. They're our N-14s, built by Cymru under license. They won't be any problems with logistic support, anyway. Three of them are N-14bs and one is an N-14d, slightly larger with a more powerful engine and better command and control…"

"I do know the Imperial Navy's ships, Frederic." Darlan interrupted. "You needn't lecture me. "

"Yes sir." I said, coloring slightly. I hurried on. "They came through about six months ago and are about out of supplies by now, although they don't admit it."

Darlan shrugged. "Six months? They could do that and still have supplies left."

"They have their families with them, sir. From what I could pick up at Karraid, they have about half again the number of people on board the ships as they are designed for."

Darlan shook his head sadly. "Families? That many? And six months in those tin cans? They must have been living right at the limits of their life support systems."

Missile frigates were about half the size of a destroyer, but were equally fast and had as many missile tubes. Naturally, they had fewer missile reloads and other supplies.

I suspected that their air and water purification systems must be on the verge of collapse from over-use by now.

"Why did they not simply offer their services to Marshal O'Donnell, Frederic?"

I smiled coldly. "Luckily for us, sir, the Governor of Arsenal is an Admiral Cunningham. Back on the other side, he demolished the navies of the League of Armed Neutrality, of which Cymru was a member. In addition, one of the Marshal's top corps commanders thoroughly wrecked Cymru's only colony world. He's a Sikh. I think his name is Singh."

"All Sikh generals are named Singh, I believe, Frederic." Darlan said with a slight smile.

"Anyway, sir, Captain ap Owen will be trying to check us out, as we'll try to check him out. But he's desperate, no question about it."

The captain nodded gravely. "They are desperate and so I will be generous. That is how one binds others to one's cause."

Once again, the captain stared into space beyond my right shoulder. "Four missile frigates. We'd have enough for a proper screen, wouldn't we? Enough to set up two actual task forces, if needs be."

I interrupted the captain's reverie. "And, the more ships we have, the more willing other warship captains will be to serve with us. And the happier merchant captains will be to sail in our convoys and pay for the privilege."

Darlan just nodded and stared. I was positive Captain ap Owen would join us, but if he didn't, I didn't want to be around when Captain Darlan found out about it. He was having too much fun commanding an imaginary fleet.

Darlan suddenly shook his head. "Enough of future possibilities, Frederic. Did you see this Litagaran?"

"Yes sir. He provided sufficient evidence that he represents Captain Cheka. I turned over Cheka's twenty percent to him. I also advised him that _Whistling Dixie_ had joined us and that the split would be twenty five percent for us, twenty five for Captain O'Hara, thirty percent for Pa'u Civa and the usual twenty percent for Captain Cheka."

"Who knows," I finished, "since _Whistling Dixie_ has twenty times our cargo capacity, perhaps Captain Cheka will make enough money to retire."

This had been the most logical solution to our problem, of course. We had no real desire to fight Captain Cheka, and he had no interest in fighting us. When Captain Trinquier of _Chacal_ had run into Captain Cheka at Karraid he had instantly seen that a deal between our two forces was in both of our best interests. At least in the short run. In the long run, one of us would destroy the other. Or, rather, we would destroy Cheka.

I frowned. "I was advised that Captain Cheka was very upset about the near miss with the nuclear missile. I told the Litagaran that we had everything under control and that we just wanted to make the battle look good. I pointed out that _Okrana_ hadn't had so much as its paint singed. I refrained from mentioning that we were upset with Captain Cheka sending that Luxan assault piercer after us. After all, that would compromise a perfectly good intelligence source."

Sooner or later we would have to rid ourselves of Captain Cheka. He was no better than a common criminal, even if he did pretend to collect taxes. At least we provided actual services in return for the money paid to us.

Darlan nodded. "I have more work for you, I'm afraid. In addition to keeping an eye out for some way to rid ourselves of Cheka, and looking for warships to join up with us, I've been thinking we need to own a merchantman."

I raised an eyebrow and Darlan went on. "If we had a good, fast merchantman of our own, we'd be able to cut out the middleman, so to speak. Say a small ship of five hundred to six hundred thousand tons, fast, with good defensive armament. Something like that could carry two or three hundred times what _Whistling Dixie_ can carry."

I nodded . One does not contradict ones captain.

Darlan continued. "With that kind of tonnage coming in from Forest of Bazil, we'd be too important economically for Marshall O'Donnell not to sign a treaty of friendship with us. It shouldn't take more than a few years to make enough to buy a proper heavy cruiser."

That was perhaps a bit optimistic, but I would never have believed how far Marshal O'Donnell had come in the short time he had been here. Who knows?

Captain Darlan began opening a file on his workstation to indicate he was done with me. I rose to leave.

"Oh, I almost forgot, Frederic. We're taking Pa'u Zhaan back to Forest of Bazil. She's to be something like an ambassador combined with visiting professor of philosophy. My translator microbes made nothing of her title. But, she wants to see you alone in her quarters."

"Alone, sir?" I asked.

"Alone." Darlan confirmed. "And none of that Unity, Frederic. As for anything else, use your best judgment and keep me informed."

As I headed for Pa'u Zhaan's quarters, I wondered if I should stop by my quarters and clean up. 

The End


End file.
